Seminars on Education - Science Education in the 21st Century: Using the Tools of Science to Teach Science - Mar 2008

Seminar 1 - Science Education in the 21st Century: Using the Tools of Science to Teach Science - Mar 2008

Spurred by such real-world challenges as global warming, Carl Wieman, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, has transformed his curiosity about improving science education into a vocation. Wieman is convinced that science education must be improved, not simply to inspire and train the next generation of scientists, but to educate a citizenry "to make wise decisions on tough questions."

Unhappy with the apparent lack of impact his undergraduate physics courses had on students, Wieman began a personal odyssey to discover why traditional methods of teaching science -- the massive lecture hall, the fact-filled lectures -- seemed to fail in the task of conveying key concepts, much less exciting listeners. He delved into cognitive psychology research, and learned that when students are passive, they retain a mere 10% of the facts conveyed to them, and that indeed, the human brain has a limited amount of RAM. Our working memory can hold around seven items. In addition, students simply "do not develop a good understanding of concepts by hearing them explained in lectures." The brain is like a muscle that must be built up, especially the structures involving long-term memory, Wieman learned, and "to develop the brain requires a strenuous effort over a long time."

Dr. Carl Wieman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001. He is the Director, Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative, University of British Columbia.